Why do we use Uranium and Plutonium for nukes? Is it possible to use other elements?
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Simply put, they’re the elements that are best for the job. They are stable enough to store for long periods, and it’s fairly easy to make them explode. There are probably some other elements that would work, but they all have issues like short half-life and very high expense.
It would be like trying to make a car that runs on something other than gasoline. You could make a car that runs on gunpowder (and some people actually tried that), but it’s really hard to make that work. You might use hydrogen, but that’s expensive and dangerous to store. You could try using something like water, but that’s just not going to work at all.
Uranium is found in mines, but it’s really hard to separate out the “good” parts that can be used in a bomb. You can use it in a reactor, though, and if you set it up right, the reactor will make Plutonium. It’s harder to make Plutonium work in a bomb, but it’s not too hard, so that’s what we mostly use. It’s possible that certain isotopes of Neptunium, Americium, and Curium could be used, but those are extremely rare and expensive, and it would be really hard to get enough to make a bomb. Most of them are only found in nuclear waste, and if you’re producing that, you might as well just make Plutonium.
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